Oh, what a year it has been! 2005 was filled with all sorts of big events, big news, and tons of big player moves. It's hard to imagine just how much the community has developed over the past year alone, but I've made it my mission to do my best in showing it all. I'll cover everything right on up to December 31, 2005, all in chronological order, so grab a seat and check out the WCReplays.com Year in Review 2005.

The seventh season of the WC3L started up on January 24th, which brought together 12 of the best teams in the world to compete for eternal glory...or something like that. Team 64AMD were the defending champions, and they had a big season ahead of them to keep their crown. Here is a list of all of the competing teams:

4Kings.Intel

Team Ownage

DkH.Keyweb

Mousesports.BenQ.GeiL

mTw.ATI

mYm International

SK Gaming

Team 3wD International

Team 64AMD

The JuNgLe TeaM

United 5

rS Gaming

It was their biggest season yet, with more top players then the league had ever seen, and had also brought in talent from places other than Europe, including Brazil, USA, and of course, South Korea.

WEG Season I in Seoul, Korea

January also brought us the start of the very first World e-Sport Games, which began on January 30. This event was the first of it's kind, in which no qualifiers were held, and players were actually invited to participate in this huge event with a $20,000 USD first place prize. Some of Warcraft's biggest names took part in the event, and here they are:

Group A

SK.Zacard
YolinY.Sky
EAT
64AMD.Deadman

Group B

SK.MaDFroG
Moon[One]
4K.ToD
MagicYang

Group C

4K.FoV
mouz.Shortround
SK.Insomnia
YolinY.suhO

Group D

SK.HeMaN
17games.xiaOt
SK.Sweet
FreeDom.WeRRa

With such stiff competition, it's no wonder that many called this event the most difficult to win out of all the big Warcraft III tournaments.

After a very close Group Stage of the event, 8 players went on to compete in a second Group Stage to determine which players would move on. No big surprises took place in this one, as Moon[One], MagicYang, SK.Zacard and YolinY.Sky made it to the semi-finals. Moon took out MagicYang in one fell swoop with a 3:0 victory to secure his spot in the finals, while Zacard and Sky battled it out all the way to game 5, where Zacard won in the end.

This set up a finals of epic proportions, as the two players competing were looked upon as the two best in the world at the time. The finals took place in March, where Moon and Zacard would face off in one final battle. It was no shock to people when Moon went on to win the finals 3:0, meaning that the star Night Elf player had gone undefeated in every game throughout the whole tournament.

Player Transactions - January

Wizard decides not to renew his contract with SK International and signs back on with his old team, mTw.ATI.

NuKe, formerly the manager of SK International, takes on the task of managing 4Kings.Intel.

WC3L Season VII - Regular Season Completed

Twelve Playdays and three months later, the seventh season of the WC3L completed on April 1. It was a very, very close season with many teams being in the playoff running until the very end, but many would say that the finals ended just as everyone had predicted. Here is a look at the final standings:

WC3L Season VIIRegular Season Final Standings

Team

Points

Matches

Score Difference

4Kings.Intel

43

11-0-0

93:37

mYm.International

37

8-0-3

85:49

Team 64AMD

36

9-0-2

81:57

Mousesports.BenQ.GeiL

32

7-0-4

76:60

SK Gaming

29

6-0-5

69:61

mTw.ATI

29

6-0-5

68:73

Team Ownage

27

5-0-6

64:73

rS Gaming

25

5-0-6

68:69

United 5

19

3-0-8

56:80

Team 3wD International

18

1-0-10

54:82

DkH.Keyweb

17

3-0-8

49:88

The JuNgLe TeaM

17

2-0-9

51:85

This meant that 4K and mYm were automatically qualified for the offline LAN finals, while 64AMD would play mTw.ATI and SK would play mouz in the online playoff matches to determine who would go to Cologne.

World Elite Revealed

Perhaps the biggest team creation came from Asia this year, as it brought to us one of the most looked forward to teams of all time. Hidden in mystery for a few weeks prior, April 16 was the release date for the roster. The original WE roster was much smaller then what we see today, but was still incredibly powerful when we first saw it. The original players were as follows:

WE.Sweet

WE.DayFly

WE.Swain

WE.Check

WE.suhO

WE.Sky

WE.Anas

Later on in the month, WE would add another two star Korean players to their lineup in WE.ReMiND and WE.SoJu. This team, sponsored by IGE and Replays.NET was not yet involved in any big leagues, but as the year progressed, WE was represented in every major tournament out there and was known to be a force to be reckoned with. The one thing they were lacking was a spot in the WC3L, however, due to issues with lag, they did not attempt to earn a spot in the WC3L Season VIII qualifiers.

mYm.International and Hanbit Stars Merge

April 27 marked the day of the second big team change of April, but rather than a new team being created, two teams merged together to create a 'super team' of sorts. The once Danish team mYm.International was one of the first European teams to incorporate Korean players into the lineup, and so it was no surprise when they decided to pick up more. But rather then going after a player or two, they decided to try and bring in an exsisting Korean proteam to their lineup, and achieved this goal when they merged lineups with Hanbit Stars to create Team mYm.Hanbit. With GoStop, Susiria and Lucifer's contracts with mYm about to expire, it was a bold move by mYm to try and keep them with their team, while not voiding their contracts with their Korean proteams. This move didn't come without any loss, however, as GoStop decided to stay with his Korean team (One), meaning he would soon leave the team. But, with all loss comes some gain, and what a gain it was for mYm. This is what their lineup looked like:

T.MH]Susiria

T.MH]Lucifer

T.MH]FarSeer

(who left Ownage soon after joining them)

T.MH]ShowTime (left Yperano after not making it to the WC3L Season VIII qualifiers)

T.MH]EVE

T.MH]High

T.MH]Bjarke

T.MH]Ciara

This was a huge addition to the squad who was preparing for WC3L Season VIII even before Season VII had even ended, and it proved to big a great move for them.

And so, for the second time in three seasons, 4Kings.Intel finished in first place in the WC3L. Many people had predicted this outcome as 4K had been dominant for the entire season, going a perfect 11-0 and not losing a clanwar since the middle of Season VI.

WC3L Season VIII Qualifiers - Cheating Galore

The aftermath of the WC3L Season VII Finals was the birth of Season VIII, and with that, the qualifiers soon began to determine which teams would earn a spot in the season. The teams competing were as follows:

a-Losers.MSI (a-L.MSI)

Against All Authority (aAa)

AoD.FH-SalzburgerLAND.com (AoD)

Boomtown Odense (BTo)

Check 6 (c6)

Team Chile (ChL)

DkH.Keyweb (DkH)

e-sports4extreme (es4x)

EGO.Intel (EGO)

elite Team (eT)

n!faculty (n!)

Fight TO Reign (FTR)

Geh aB Clan (GaB)

goodgame (GG)

Incredible Teamaction (it)

LanFan (LFan)

plan-B (pB)

pro-gaming (pG)

Project K2 (K2)

Remained in Force (RiF)

Storm Games Clan (SGC)

Team 3wD (3wD)

Team Pentagram (CNN)

Team zer0 (tZ)

The Elder Gods - 4Glory (TeG-4G)

The JuNgLe TeaM (jNg)

United 5 (u5)

United Forces (UF)

Winner Takes All (WTA)

xPLICIT Professional Gaming Team (xPL)

The table was set for a great qualifying tournament, however no one knew how much trouble would pass over the next few weeks. The first issue arose in the match between xPL and pG, in which xPL)LuxuryMaster was found to be playing not only for himself, but for xPL)EggMan as well. Thus, xPL was disqualified from the qualifiers. No more than a day later, the German team a-L.MSI was also found to have a player fakenicking on a friend's account. a-L.MSI.Quee was unable to make his match on time, and so a still unknown player was found to be playing on his account. a-L.MSI was also removed from the qualifiers. Finally, two days later, the final incident of cheating took place when BTo.Revael was found to have been playing for BTo.Jacob in their match against aAa. Both Revael and BTo were banned from the WC3L.

It was sad to see such events go down in such a prestigious league, but it was all put in the past and has not happened since.

Player Transactions - May

Sweet is removed from SK Gaming due to joining World Elite.

Jan and daRk go inactive from Mousesports.BenQ.GeiL.

Spirit_Moon leaves Mousesports.BenQ.GeiL.

GoStop, Way and Rainbow join Mousesports.BenQ.GeiL.

ElakeDuck leaves Team 64AMD, joins SK Gaming.

Other Events - May

4K.FuRy wins Swedish ACON5 qualifiers.

T.MH]Ciara wins Danish ACON5 qualifiers.

64AMD.ElakeDuck wins Rixhack.

64AMD.Creolophus defeats 3wD.RotterdaM in Colloseum KotH.

4K.ToD wins French ACON5 qualifiers but cannot go due to WEG, therefore Blatty takes his place.

For the first time in WC3L history, the German squad mTw.ATI did not make the playoff round, showing that it looked to finally be the decline of the two time WC3L champions. mYm and SK also showed their strengths this season with big score improvements from last season. However, aside from that, no big surprises really came when the dust settled on the regular season. We'd have to wait for the Finals for that.

WEG Season III

Season III of the famed World e-Sports Games began on October 20, which, for the first time, consisted of several players who qualified for the event at regional qualifiers held before the event itself. Players from all over the world were invited to participate in one of 4 qualifiers held in Europe, China, North America and Korea. In the European qualifiers, mTw-DIDI8, SK.ElakeDuck, fnatic.SaSe and GG-Wolfy managed to qualify, while QcH[ATI]GoHome, WE.Tiger and wNv.xiaOt qualified in China. Perhaps the most interesting qualifiers did not actually take place at all, as Carlos 'BoO' Armendariz took a drive from his hometown of El Paso, Texas up to Los Angeles, California in a grueling road trip which would eventually be his ticket to WEG III, as he was the only participant to show up. To wrap it all out, T.MH]Lucifer qualified in Korea to make his first appearance in the WEG circuit, along with WE.Sweet who was making his return to WEG after his disappointing first-round loss in Season I. Here is a full list of players to compete in the event:

Group A

Spirit_Moon
wNv.xiaOt
GG18-Wolf
verGe_Boo

Group B

NiP-GoStop
SK.ElakeDuck
fnatic.SaSe
Qch[ATI].GoHome

Group C

T.MH]Lucifer
WE.Sweet
WE.TiGer
mTw-DIDI8

This season of WEG was perhaps the most exciting ever, but for different reasons then most would think. For the first time in his history with WEG, the 2-time defending champion Spirit_Moon was put on the ropes and forced to pull off some big wins early on. No one had expected for Moon to be in trouble in the second group stage, but when the dust settled, Moon sat at 1-2 after taking two loses to - you guessed it - 2 Undead players, GoStop being one of them. Seems that GoStop would end up being Moon's Kryptonite, as Moon was then forced to go into a series of regames with T.MH]Lucifer and fnatic.SaSe who were both at 1-2 to see which of them would move on to the second round. In an incredible 3 rounds of regames, one of the most shocking events in WEG history took place - Moon had finally been beaten; twice by SaSe and once by Lucifer. Lucifer was the one to move on after taking out SaSe and Moon on his third try, but the focus was all on Moon's failure rather than Lucifer's success.

And so, the tournament went on with everyone knowing that a new champion would finally be crowned, and that the Night Elf giant had been silenced, at least for the rest of the season. The semi-final rounds had been set out, with the three Korean Undead players, GoStop, Lucifer and Sweet taking 3 spots, while the sole Orc player, and sole European was ElakeDuck. GoStop took on Elake in the first semi-final match, and, after winning the first game and dropping the second, GoStop went to move on to the Grand Finals for the second season in a row. Sweet and Lucifer was a little more intense. The two exchanged the first 4 games, with game 5 being played on Bloodhoof, a map in which Lucifer had won earlier on. With the odds somewhat stacked against him, Sweet won game five, solidifying his position in the Grand Finals against GoStop.

And so the stage was set; literally at that. GoStop and Sweet went head to head in the all-Undead finals for the title of WEG III Champion. Things looked to be going well for GoStop who won the first two games, having only to win one more to finally capture that title which eluded him last season. But Sweet was not about to take it sitting down. In amazing swing of events, Sweet won the last 3 games (including game 5 on Bloodhoof, the same first map he had lost to Lucifer and GoStop on in game one), redeeming himself after his upset in Season I.

BlizzCon

As if the month wasn't exciting enough as it was, October also held host to the first-ever Blizzard Convention - or, BlizzCon. BlizzCon, which took place in Anaheim, California, was to be the first ever games convention held by Blizzard, and would be the stomping grounds of Blizzard gamers all over the world. All of Blizzard's more recent games were represented at BlizzCon, including the popular MMORPG World of Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft, and, of course, Warcraft III. Blizzard announced they would hold an invite-only tournament with 8 of the best Warcraft players in the world (doing the same for Starcraft), with each race being represented by two players each. Here is a look at the attending players:

4K.Grubby

Name: Manuel Schenkhuizen

Country: Netherlands

Race: Orc

SK.Zacard

Name: Tae Min Hwang

Country: Korea

Race:Orc

4K.ToD

Name: Yoan Merlo

Country: France

Race: Human

4K.FuRy

Name: Sebastian Pesic
Country: Sweden

Race: Undead

SK.Insomnia

Name: Zdravko Georgiev

Country: Bulgaria

Race: Human

SK.MaDFroG

Name: Fredrik Johansson

Country: Sweden

Race: Undead

mouz.Shortround

Name: Dennis Chan

Country: USA

Race: Night Elf

verGe_Wizard

Name: Matthew Anderson

Country: USA

Race:NightElf

The tournament was to be a simple double-elimination bracket, with as many games as possible to be broadcasted on the big screen at the event, as well as via a videostream provided by the GGL. The shoutcaster for the event was none other than our very own Kim 'bunny' Vothang, who would be participating in her first ever live shoutcasting event.

The only real problem that presented itself came before the tournament itself. In a tragic turn of events, SK.Insomnia had gotten into a car crash on his way to the airport heading to the event, which caused him to have to stay back and have things attending to (he only suffered a broken leg and some bruising, but other than that came out fit as a fiddle). To replace him, Blizzard got a hold of the closest player to the Anaheim area that they could find, and called up eTched to take his place.

The tournament itself was a huge success. All of the players put on a great show and everything was very, very exciting to watch. However, two players in particular lit up the big screen at the event. 4K.Grubby and SK.Zacard had both made it to the Grand Finals, and in typical Grubby & Zacard fashion, put on two amazing games for the crowd to watch. It seems that whenever these two meet anywhere (WCG 2004 & WC3L Finals come to mind), they put on a real good show. BlizzCon was no exception, as the crowd was up on their feet for the entire series. Grubby managed to come out on top, thus taking the first place spot, along with the giant sword and fat check that accompanied it.

NiP Creates WC3 Squad

The last big player movement of the year came from Korea, and what a move it was. After spending the eighth WC3L season with Mousesports.BenQ.GeiL, almost all of their Korean players (minus Romeo) decided not to renew their contracts, and thus, as of the end of the season, were no longer part of the team. With such huge talent on the market, everyone knew it would only be a matter of time before they were snatched up. However, rather then joining a current WC3L team, the likes of GoStop, Way, Rainbow and FarSeer opted to move to a completely new team - at least, a newcomer to the Warcraft III scene. Ninjas In Pyjamas (NiP) is a very well known team in the CounterStrike scene, and has been for quite some time. Their CS roster is full of some big names, so it's no coincidence that when they decided to make a move on the WC3 scene that they would take on a big team. Along with NangChun and SouthSea, the Korean players took on the new persona of NiP3. A full list of the team can be found here:

GoStop

Rainbow

FarSeer

Way

NangChun

SouthSea

The team has already made a big impact on the WC3L scene, recently earning a spot in the league via the WC3L Season IX Qualifiers. We can expect some big things from this team full of great talent, and expect them to be one of the top contenders for the WC3L championship this season.

WC3L Season VIII - Player Awards

Along with the actual final matches being played, the WC3L introduced the first ever Player Awards, in which 5 players in the league were nominated and then voted on by the fans, based on 3 different categories. Winners received, among some snazzy prizes, more pride then they could ever imagine and all the bragging rights in the world. Here is a look at the results of those votings:

Rookie of the Year

T.MH]Storm 32.3%

mouz.FarSeer 27.7%

plan-B.ToRReN 23.2%

Most Improved Player

fnatic.SaSe 31.6%

T.MH]Lucifer 24.1%

4K.FuRy 19.7%

Most Valuable Player

4K.Grubby 64.7%

SK.Deadman 16.8%

T.MH]Lucifer 9.2%

Player Transactions - November

plan-B Sweden (what is left of their lineup) moves to LanFan International, along with DaeBu, JoeY, OverDrivE and Space.

Zerter and Zubie leave mTw.ATI.

DIDI8 leaves mTw.ATI due to their squad wishing to be only German players - WinneR would be released January 1.

So, as I'm sure you have all figured out by now, this has been one hectic year for the Warcraft III scene. So what can we conclude from this? Other than the fact that players bounce from team to team like pinballs, we can ascertain that this was a year full of great competition and huge development in the Warcraft III community. The year provided some of the most memorable games and series to ever be played, as well as a lot of surprises for everyone to watch out for. After all that has happened in the year that was, we can only hope that 2006 will provide us with the same amount of excitement and thrills that 2005 brought.

I'll admit I stole the idea from watching the TSN (Canada's ESPN) year in review on Christmas for the past few years, so thought this would be a good idea to try out. 15 days and 12 some odd hours of work later, and this is what I got xD

No, no it can't get much more organized than this. Fucking awsome work with this, I love the chronological order! I love the flags!! I love all the names and events covered!! Really nicely written up, very 'journalistic' tone to the writting which is I assume exactly what you were going for. Very unbiased, which is excellent. Overall best article/feature I've read in a long time, and already I've been using it as a reference to discuss player matters and such with friends (makes me look real 'hip' on the scene :D). Anyways, great work with this piece, can't wait till next year's!!